Attempted Matrimony

by Joanna Wayne

  “I think he could have.”

  The statement twisted inside her, made her nauseous. “What changed your mind? The baby Karen was carrying wasn’t his. The DNA sample proved that.”

  “It’s not the DNA. I know what I have to tell you will shock you, but you have to listen carefully. I don’t think the baby or the affair had anything to do with Karen’s murder, but I do think it’s possible that Malcomb killed her.”

  “Why are you telling me this? I don’t know a lot about police procedures, but I’m certain explaining the situation to the wife is not necessary for obtaining an arrest warrant.”

  “Malcomb’s not going to be arrested, at least not at this time.”

  “Then you don’t have evidence of his guilt. So why are you really here, Dallas? What is it you want from me?”

  “I want you to get away from Malcomb.”

  Which was exactly what she wanted, but not like this. “My marriage is no concern of yours, Dallas.”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I think you may be in danger, Nicole. I can’t explain more. I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but I can’t stand by and say nothing.”

  Desperation tore at her, pulled her in opposite directions like a rope in a vicious tug-of-war. “Don’t do this, Dallas. Don’t just come in here and drop insinuations. If you know something I should know, just say it.”

  “I’m telling you all I can. I think you should go away until this is over, Nicole. Take a vacation on a beach in Mexico or go to Europe for an extended stay. You can easily afford to.”

  “And what would I tell Malcomb?”

  “Tell him you need a break. Tell him the murder investigation is getting to you. Hell, I don’t care what you tell him. He tells you whatever he pleases. Return the favor.”

  “It’s not my style. Neither is running away from my problems.” Though now that it was all said and done she wasn’t certain that marrying Malcomb hadn’t been just that. Running away from her father’s death, from the frightening knowledge that she and Ronnie were all that was left of their immediate family.

  “You admitted things are not going well between the two of you,” Dallas continued. “At best this would just be a temporary separation.”

  “And at worst?”

  “Let’s not think of the worst right now.”

  Only he was thinking of the worst. It shadowed his eyes, dug deep grooves in his forehead, pulled his lips taut. “If you want me to leave, then you’ll have to tell me the whole story, Dallas. I’m sick of lies and half-truths.”

  “Okay, Nicole. I guess you deserve to know what the possibilities are. But I’m warning you, it’s going to make the worst nightmare you ever had seem like a Disney movie.”

  “I still want to hear it.”

  She sat motionless while Dallas fed her the terrifying facts, held on to control by a fragile thread while he described in graphic details the murders that the media had withheld. Three women, all murdered in the same manner, tortured fiendishly, had had their throats slit, then been cleaned up and posed as if they were waiting for a lover. And Karen Tucker had been killed in a rather similar fashion, leaving the police to speculate that she might also be a victim of the serial killer.

  “You can’t possibly believe that Malcomb is the madman who’s been terrorizing the town.”

  “Convince me I’m wrong, Nicole. Tell me about your husband.”

  “He’s a doctor. He works long hours. He…”

  “Is he manipulative?”

  “He can be, but…”

  “Is he a control freak?”

  “Yes, I told you that, but…”

  “Is he messy?”

  She grabbed a quick breath. “No. Just the opposite. He insists everything be neat and ordered. He doesn’t even go to bed at night without his robe being hung just so, and his slippers being placed in the exact same spot beneath the edge of the bed. He even wants the floor mopped with certain products.”

  Dallas nodded. “Listen carefully, Nicole. We received the report today from a very efficient FBI profiler. Everything you’ve told me about Malcomb fits her projections. The bursts of uncontrolled anger, the excessive bent for control, the obsession for having every part of his life ordered and spotlessly clean.”

  Icy needles pricked her flesh. She wanted to cover her ears, block these ridiculous accusations. Instead she looked Dallas straight in the eye. “What else did the profiler say?”

  She listened to Dallas’s repetition of the findings, hating him for telling her these things, hating Malcomb for fitting the profile, most of all hating herself for getting caught up in something so sick and depraved.

  But she could understand Dallas’s concern. Malcomb slid into the profile like one of those pegs toddlers push through the right-shaped hole. The only exception was the fact that he was married. But that didn’t mean he was a serial killer. There were probably hundreds, maybe thousands of men who fit that profile.

  “It can’t be Malcomb, Dallas. I didn’t marry a madman. I couldn’t.” Her voice quavered and she had to work to control the shudders assaulting her. “Do you have any proof at all that Malcomb did these horrible things?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s all just supposition or some preposterous hunch.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “He’s not guilty, Dallas, not of that. I’ve been married to him for ten months. I’d know if he were capable of such things. Does Malcomb know that he’s a suspect in the serial killer investigation?”

  “No, and it’s important that he not find out. His knowing could jeopardize the investigation.”

  “And yet you came here tonight and told me, knowing I could go straight to him.”

  “I had to take that chance.”

  “Why?”

  He brushed the back of his hand across her cheek gently, barely touching her skin, and yet she trembled.

  “I’m no good at explaining feelings, Nicole. All I know is it’s driving me crazy thinking you could be in the house with the monster that murdered those women.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Dallas, but I have to have time to think this through.”

  “What is there to think about? You can grab some things and come with me right now.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Sure it is. Women leave men all the time and for far less reason than this. You can stay with me until you decide what to do next.”

  Go home with Dallas. There was a time when that invitation would have sent her into white-hot ecstasy. Even now she wanted to go with him, simply run and escape her life, just the way he said. But she’d be rushing headlong into another type of complication, one that could lead to sheer heartbreak.

  She closed her eyes, pictured Malcomb in his robe and slippers reading the Sunday paper, visualized him pouring the two of them wine in the crystal stemmed glasses they’d received as wedding presents, remembered how he’d looked in Greece, diving off the end of the sailboat into the shining sapphire water of the Adriatic Sea and cajoling her to join him. These were not the images of a madman.

  “You’re as hardheaded as Gerald Dalton ever was,” Dallas said.

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

  “I know.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t share the things I told you with anyone, not even Janice. Any leak at all will hinder the investigation.”

  “I won’t breathe a word.”

  He walked to the door, his shoulders stooped, looking far older than he had when he’d arrived only minutes earlier. He turned and glanced at her. “Call me if you change your mind?”

  “I promise.” She walked over and stopped inches from him, wishing she could step into his arms and just hold on until her world titled back on its axis. But if she stepped into his arms tonight, she might never let him leave without her.

  Dallas touched two fingers to her lips. “Take care, Nicole. Please take care.”

/>   She stood just outside the door and watched as he hurried down the walk, dreading the thought of stepping back inside the empty house with just the horrifying images in her mind for company. A cruel and brutal serial killer who’d struck too close to home. It couldn’t be Malcomb, and yet a chilling foreboding haunted her as she closed the door and stepped back into her life as Mrs. Malcomb Lancaster.

  THE BAR WAS SMOKY, dark, pungent with the smells of beer, peanuts and perspiration that had soaked into the tattered fabric of the booths where Penny Washington sat. A spot that gave her a clear view of the door.

  She had been to this dingy, roach-infested joint before. That time she’d come with Karen, given in to her pleadings to be there with her when she told her smug doctor boyfriend that she was carrying his child and that she would not just fade into the woodwork to make life easier for him.

  Penny hadn’t liked this place then. She liked it less now. But then she’d only been agitated. Tonight she was afraid. She knew too much. Knew that the doctor had threatened to kill Karen if she whispered a word to his wife. Penny knew about the club. Knew about the pictures and the deserted camp where all kinds of lewd activities took place. She knew because she’d been part of it.

  “Want to dance?”

  Penny looked up into the face of the young guy at her elbow, then drew away impulsively. Tobacco juice stained his teeth, and a day’s growth of whiskers blackened his pronounced chin. “No, thank you.”

  “Then mind if I join you? No need for a sweet little thing like you to be sittin’ all by herself.”

  “I’m not alone.”

  “Oh, excuse me.” He nodded to the empty chair beside hers. “I didn’t see you sittin’ there, sir. You got yourself one sexy little babe, here. If you can’t handle her, you send her over to the bar and I’ll fill in for you with a pair of real arms.”

  “I meant to say I’m expecting someone.”

  “Well, hell, aren’t I someone?”

  Penny felt the perspiration forming under her armpits and between her breasts. It was part of the intimidation plan, making her come to a place like this, making her wait indefinitely. “Please, I don’t mean to be rude. I just want to be alone.”

  “Hey now, sweet thang, don’t go gettin’ all upset. No one has to brush off old Bobby Dobber more than once. But you’re missing your chance with the best. Think about that while you sit here all by your lonesome.” He winked and made a clucking noise before sauntering back to the bar.

  She picked up her purse from the seat next to her and rummaged in her wallet for the money to pay for her Diet Coke. A half hour was long enough to wait. Not that leaving would change anything. The deal would be made eventually. She’d agree to it, or she’d be dead.

  Play the game and everything would be all right. That had been Malcomb’s advice. But then he had been Karen’s advisor, too. Which just proved that even good cardiothoracic surgeons didn’t know bull when it came to dealing with black hearts.

  She motioned to the waitress to bring her the check. The door opened, letting in a whisper of fresh air and Dr. Jim Castle. His gaze scanned the room, then settled on her. There was no smile, no look of recognition, just a smirk and quick steps in her direction.

  The waitress stopped what she was doing and watched him. Penny wondered if the waitress knew that the nerdy looking guy in the expensive teal dress shirt and tacky silk tie was a psychiatrist and that he was capable of murder.

  NICOLE WAS FIGHTING a temple-splitting headache by the time Malcomb called to tell her he wouldn’t be home for dinner. The call was like a reprieve, giving her additional time to regain her composure before she was forced to face him and pretend the suspicions Dallas had planted weren’t ringing in her head.

  Stopping at the sink, she filled a glass with tap water and took it with her to the medicine chest in the master bedroom to locate some aspirin. Her hands were still shaky, making it difficult to remove the cap. Finally she succeeded and shook two tablets into her hand. The medicine chest was filled with stronger medications, free samples Malcomb had brought home, but she wanted a clear head for the decisions that seemed a hundred times more urgent since Dallas’s visit.

  She flicked on the CD player, and the soothing strains of a piano concerto filled the candle-scented air of the bedroom she shared with Malcomb. Slipping out of her shoes, she sagged onto the bed, fell back and pulled a green mohair throw over her stockinged feet. She closed her eyes, but the second blackness set in, grotesque images of dead women charged into her mind.

  Murder, lies, deceptions, locked doors. Those were the things that had come to define her life with Malcomb. But this had been her home long before it had been theirs. She had every right to know what was inside it. Her heart rate was still accelerated when she picked up the phone and dialed a nearby locksmith she’d used before when she’d lost her keys, but she felt better now that she’d made a decision to act.

  It was imperative that she find out what Malcomb kept in his locked chambers above the garage. Medical research for a new article he was writing—or evidence of a deranged mind? Photography equipment—or souvenirs taken from slain victims?

  It was madness for her to even be thinking like this. But the madness wasn’t hers. It had been handed to her like a chemically poisoned letter that she couldn’t refuse. Now she had no choice but to play the game by the new rules.

  “Jake’s Locksmith Shop, Jake speaking.”

  “Hi, Jake. This is Nicole Lancaster. I’ve lost my key to the apartment over the garage and I was wondering how long it would take you to come over and unlock it for me.”

  “I can be there in ten minutes. Is that soon enough for you?”

  “That would be great.”

  She hung up the phone and went to the living room to wait on Jake’s knock. Whatever lay behind the locked doors of Malcomb’s study, she would face it and deal with it. Somehow. Some way.

  I’m only a phone call away.

  Mere words, but she knew that Dallas meant them. That assurance was the glue that held her together as she waited for Jake to unlock the door and give her a glimpse inside Malcomb’s private world.

  Chapter Eleven

  Nicole stood at the unlocked door, hearing the sound of Jake’s truck as it clattered to life and backed down her driveway, feeling the sting of a gust of wind, aware of the dry, metallic taste of fear. She’d cowered inside while Jake had unlocked the door, wanting to be by herself when she entered the space over the garage.

  Her rational mind fully expected to find nothing amiss, but the suspicions Dallas had planted made the newly unlocked door seem more like a point of no return rather than just a slab of dead wood.

  Finally, she dredged up the courage to act. A quick turn and a shove, and the door flew open. She stepped inside. The room smelled of Malcomb, a musky scent of the expensive men’s cologne he always wore, the stringent odor of the antiseptic spray he routinely used on every surface his hands touched.

  And even in the shadowed grayness of the unlit room, she was aware of the uncluttered, organized condition of the space. No stacks of files on the desk, no folded newspaper thrown about, no empty drink cans or unwashed coffee cups. Just immaculate order.

  Sliding her finger along the wall, she flicked on the overhead light and filled the room with glaring illumination that eradicated the shadows and slowed her pulse to near normal. At least it slowed for one brief second before her gaze fixed on the wall behind his desk and the pictures that covered it.

  The pictures were in bright colors, the right size to have been torn from pornographic magazines. Only they weren’t torn. They’d been carefully cut, their edges smooth and even, a perfect border around each one. Mounted. Suitable for framing in the house of a…a deranged madman.

  She stood frozen to the spot beneath the garish brightness of the overhead light, her stomach retching while she stared at a continuous array of men and women engaged in bizarre, sadistic sex acts.

  The momentary numbness dissol
ved, and she walked to the bulletin board and examined each picture. It was clear that the male was the dominant figure in all the photographs. The women were shapely and attractive, naked, or at least with their genital areas fully exposed. Their faces were all twisted in pain.

  It was sickening to think that people posed for pictures like this, more abhorrent to know people sought them out. Not just people, but her husband. Her stomach began to retch again, this time so violently that she had to rush to the small bathroom and hold on to the edge of the basin while she threw up in the sparkling clean toilet.

  Minutes later, her face washed in cool water, she returned to the pictures, this time determined to think and act more clearly. Somehow she had to detach herself from the situation enough to do so.

  The pictures made Dallas’s suspicions about Malcomb seem a hundred times more possible than they had when he’d told her about the brutal murders of innocent women. But as sick as the pictures were, they didn’t mean Malcomb was a killer. If people published magazines like this, then there had to be a market for them. Malcomb couldn’t be the only man in America who got off on such demented entertainment.

  Crossing the room, she opened the door to the area he’d had made into a darkroom. Everything was stored in its own perfect niche, but at least there were no sickening pictures on display. She shut the door and walked to his desk, dropping into the leather chair. The top left drawer was locked. She tried to pry it open with a bronze letter opener she found on the desk, but the lock held tight. She went through the other drawers, one at a time. They were easy to explore, each of them organized with plastic separators that kept every item in place. Pens, scissors, glue, paper clips, staples, all the typical office supplies.

  The bottom drawer on the right held a stack of magazines still in their brown envelopes, all mailed to different names but the same box number. That made sense. Malcomb would never have such material mailed to his home or office or to his own name. To the world at large, he was a respected cardiothoracic surgeon, a man of stature and reputation.